Behind the Scenes of a Marcia Kramer Hit Piece

Ever wondered what goes into the making of a Marcia Kramer hit piece, those nearly-perfected hatchet jobs on whatever DOT safety improvement is on her radar that week? We got to watch Kramer in action at Wednesday’s transportation committee meeting as she gathered footage for her most recent attack on the city’s plaza program.

Kramer also assiduously avoided including the voices of the many community members in support of the plaza program. I was sitting next to Kramer when she turned to the people sitting in the row behind us and asked what they thought of the plazas. She was hoping to put regular citizens on camera, she said to them. When they said they were there in support of the plaza program — they lived near the new plaza at Bogardus Garden in the West Village — Kramer sounded as if she immediately lost interest.

Kramer also interviewed Dan Biederman, who represents businesses on 34th Street and in Chelsea and strongly supports the plaza. That footage never made it onto the screen, though the anchor quickly mentioned his support after Kramer’s report concluded.

Noah Kazis joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox.

Reporters have contacted the community board office in our district and asked for contact info for relevant members regarding an issue – but only if they “back-up” the reporter’s point-of-view. Needless to say, I wasn’t the one to get called about ped plazas, traffic calming measures, bike lanes….

Anonymous

It’s heartening to see the Streetsblog troika of Kazis, Aaron & Fried post today’s superb trifecta on Kramer deconstruction, speed cameras, and Vacca watch. You guys and your behind-the-scenes colleagues are doing such amazing work, day in and day out.

Trorbtacular

Today at the mayor’s live presser on the budget she asked if closing 20 firehouses would have an effect on response times. The mayor quickly jumped in “we are talking about 20 companies, not firehouses.”

Not that it didn’t surprise me she got it wrong.

Trorbtacular

Then the mayor added to Kramer “Big difference.”

David

I was interviewed for a news spot once, they always have a story agenda regardless of the topic and often distort or use what they want to make the story. Nothing new. Maybe we should take Marsha for a bike ride?

nsanyi23

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